My first digital art display, from the now-defunct company Electric Objects, turned into a brick when the online library was shut down in 2023. I’d been changing the image almost every morning to give myself imaginary windows into new places, many of which gave me ideas for blog posts and stories. Without my daily picture to spark fresh thoughts, I felt that I’d lost some of my creative energy.

I thought there had to be something out there with similar features, but Google searches didn’t turn up anything quite right. I’d been busy with overtime work as my employer focused more on AI, my husband was busy too, and our rowing exercises and long road trips to regattas didn’t seem to leave much time to research available products. Replacing the art display ended up on the get-around-to-it-sometime list.

It wasn’t until the day after Christmas, when I’d had enough quiet time to free up a few brain cells, that I realized I could simply use AI to find a new digital art display with the features I wanted. I had to edit my prompt a few times, but Copilot soon located the Meural Canvas II by Netgear, which has what I was looking for—an online library, upload capability, and an app to change the picture whenever I want.

I cropped one of the images my daughter sent from Auckland, with her dog and the Christmas tree in her apartment, and I displayed it this morning. Then I sent her a photo showing the picture on the wall, to give her some holiday cheer when she’s so far from home.

It cheered me up, too, on a dark midwinter morning when there was so little sunlight that everything around the image looked gray. (That wall is actually white.) I’d turned on a daylight lamp on the end table beside the couch, but it didn’t do much to relieve the gloom by itself. Having a new art display with a cheerful image reminding me of close family bonds did much more.